The Fox
by ScribeofHeroes
Summary: For a while, he'd had no hope, until he saw The Lion.


**The movie-verse, I own nothing. All credits to C. S. Lewis and the writer of the script. **

He raced across the snow. He barely dared to slow down at times to conserve his strength. He tried to take the low paths through the brush only small Creatures like him could take, around the thorns of briars and under the snow-covered boughs of bushes.

He came at last to the sea. He stopped and looked out over its grey surface. He sat down while staring and listened to the wind whistle around him. His red and white fur was stirred by it. His amber eyes studied what lay before him.

Snow ... and ice ... not much different from what lay behind except the absence of any brown and green reaching for the sky. The horizon was unbroken now. Even here the waves stood frozen, the same way as they must have for a hundred years.

He sighed and spoke without an ear nearby to hear, except his own. "I was born to this frozen land ... thus it has been since the year of my birth, and thus it shall be at my death."

He lay down, rested his chin in his paws, and sighed. He had tried. He had tried to hear things first, warn people, but he had failed this time.

An entire village, Squirrels, Birds, and Badger and Boar both, turned to stone before he got there. And worse, or perhaps best, he had been noticed on his way to warn them, and he had noticed he'd been noticed and by whom. They knew now. He knew they knew, which was why he'd fled. "But what to?"

He continued staring out over the sea. He sighed again and raised his head. The wind seemed to take his words away even as he spoke them in the opposite direction that it blew to. "When are you coming? Will you ever? Long after I'm dead, perhaps, when every dwarf, dryad, and centaur who even remembers You, or who remembers at least their parents speaking of seeing you, has had their voices silenced by the rattle of death or by being turned to stone? What are you waiting for?!"

This last line he'd shouted across the snow and ice toward where he could barely hear actual, moving waves lapping at their frozen cousins. Sharp, hard curves like daggers dared any to walk out to where hope was supposed to come from standing still in time between him and that land of legend for those who had faith.

He bowed his head. Tears wound down his face. "What have we waited for and why?"

Then he looked up and blinked again. "Are my parents and siblings with You there? Are they disappointed in their brother and son? Are you? Is that why You do not come?"

He fell down, not on his folded legs, but on his side. He sighed a third time before mumbling into the wind whistling over him. "Take me too ... I no longer have the strength to go on in this quiet ... If the Witch catches me now I will die for nothing, but my failure ... If this daughter of Eve falls into her hands she will die or be imprisoned as Tumnus is ... whom I also failed. How can I bare to fail again? Let the ice and snow take me even before their mistress does ... lest I also face the true death of hope." And then he fell silent.

He closed his eyes and lay there. He knew not how much later, except that he had felt the bite of the wind fade away, his limbs grow stiff, and his eyelids frost over in the meantime, he felt something different.

Another gust of air wafted over him, but it was warm. It stirred his fur and eyelashes after melting away the crystals of water stiffening them. Indeed, it also dried the droplets they'd turned into away.

The Fox opened his eye facing the gust which had so blown over him. Then that eye widened. He sprang to his feet and turned around. Then he realized this was a wonder. his limbs were full of life and warmth as if the blood in them had never grown sluggish or chill. He let his mouth fall open and took one step back while staring up into the face of the great Beast standing over him.

The eyes looking back into his were more gold than amber. Also golden was all the fur surrounding those eyes, both the short hairs of the face and the very long ones around it. There were also whiskers like his on the cheeks, but longer. The Beast seemed to have bowed his head over him, but now lifted it to stare down at him from further up and away.

The Fox swallowed at this sight, and then spoke. "A Lion ... but the Witch turned them all to stone long ago, before I was born. They reminded her too much of ..." He stared up further into the face, before backing away while lowering his head even further down than it had been before. "Are you Him?"

"Peace ... Fox ... My peace be upon you." The Great Lion's eyes grew soft and gentle. He slightly tilted his head before going on, "I spoke to your parents before I left and also to your siblings. They wish Me to tell you, they 'are' proud of you."

The Fox's eyes widened. He raised his head. No one had been there to hear him ask that question. He swallowed again.

The Great Cat smiled at him and went on. "Fox ... do not speak of your death again this day. I have much work for you to do. You and Tumnus were right. The appearance of the Daughter of Eve was a sign. She has returned along with her older sister and two brothers. I have called them here."

The Fox's mouth fell further open. He now took a step toward this Great Creature. Then he grinned. The Lion raised his head higher and gestured with his nose toward the west. "Go and tell all waiting. Tell them to tell others I am here. I shall await the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve I have called to Narnia at a place near the Stone Table. The Time has come."

When He had stopped speaking, He bent his head and breathed upon the Fox again. This time the Fox closed his open eyes and breathed in the waft of air. That which entered his lungs burned throughout all his insides. The breath which flowed over him seemed to set his fur, skin, and flesh on fire. But it did not hurt. It felt like energy. It felt like hope.

With a yipe of excitement, he'd not felt since being a kit, he jumped up and licked the Lion's face. Then he turned and ran back the way he'd come into the west. He feared the Witch no longer. The Lion was here! He had come to set them all free!

**What did you think? :)**

**God Bless**

**ScribeofHeroes**


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